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Hirsi Ali photographed in Ellis Island for the
February 2007 issue of Vogue
The normally lucid Diana West has an odd column up. Perhaps she's getting tangled in degrees of morality.
She is defending Ayaan Hirsi Ali against the tirades of a writer I've never heard of, but who writes for the leftist magazine The Nation and also for the New York Times.
Rather than defend Ali, perhaps West could have just left Deborah Scroggins' ugly book alone. Sometimes, by defending nominal allies against the tirades of their enemies, we lose our own innocence.
I've written several posts on Ali showing that despite her forceful and belligerent denunciations of Islam, she is no real friend or ally of the West. She gained attention outside of the Netherlands when she forcefully attacked Islam. Much later on, she wrote several articles and went on televised interviews attacking Christianity (or more consistently, all religions, but specifically Christianity). Here is what I wrote about her appearance on the Colbert Show in 2010 (the video is here) and her negative views of Christianity:
At one point, Colbert, the liberal, refuses to accept Ali demonizing Islam. But, perhaps he is less of a liberal than he makes out (TV shows are notoriously left-leaning, and he has to "play the game" to keep the ratings up). What Colbert does, unprecedented in other shows and interviews I've watched, is to invite Ali to Christianity, after having made her admit that she's an atheist. Partly, I think it is his way of telling her to put her money where her mouth is, since she is telling Christians to proselytize to Muslims, and get them to convert to the "better religion" Christianity.I write about her failed project to write a philosophical discourse:
At this point, Ali goes all out in mocking Christianity, which she has no intention whatsoever of joining. She makes fun of the Eucharist, brushes aside the notion of hell in Christian theology, and denounces Jesus Christ, saying she prefers the Enlightenment philosophers to him. Colbert did keep pushing her (in the guise of talk-show humor) until she reached this vocal and hostile condemnation.
Initially, she had planned to write a philosophical discourse which she had decided to title Shortcuts to Enlightenment. But she abandoned this project to continue with her roster of memoirs and autobiographies, and wrote the memoir Nomad instead. I've written before that this approach is probably more financially lucrative, and anything she says will be attributed to her opinions or her "personal story" and therefore cannot be refuted by scholars or historians.Here are several posts I've written on the intellectual development of Ali, which showed signs of promise, but ended up by giving us bland memoirs and anti-Christian rhetoric:
Islam's Missionary Women, October 2, 2008
Hirsi Ali and Knopf Canada, March 19, 2009
All about Ayaan, June 2, 2010
Hirsi Ali on the View From the Right, June 20, 2010
More on Hirsi Ali and Her Disdain for Christianity, July 12, 2010
Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Latest Update, February 10, 2010
Hirsi Ali's Advice to Geert Wilders, January 17, 2012